V. I. Lenin

One of the Obstacles to Party Unity

Published:Sotsial-DemokratNo. 13, April 26 (May 9), 1910.

      Published according to the text inSotsial-Demokrat.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1974],

      Moscow,Volume 16,

      pages189-190.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2004

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Whilethepro-PartyMensheviks in quite a number
of groups abroad are rallying together and coming out more and more
strongly against the patently liquidationist trend ofGolos
Sotsial-Demokrata, the ViennaPravdais still acting
evasively. In No. 42 we find an article entitled “To Unity—Despite All
Obstacles”. In this article one cannot but approve the first, even if very
timid and very incomplete, attempt to carry out the resolution of the
C.C. aboutexplainingthe danger of liquidationism. On the other
hand, the who]e of the first part of the article is an illustration how
much further from defending partyism certain alleged non-factional
Social-Democrats are than thepro-PartyMensheviks.

HerePravdatells a downright untruth, asserting that the
editorial board of the Central Organ in the article entitled “Golos
(Voice) of the Liquidators Against the

			       Party”{1}declared the “whole agreement” to have been “disrupted”. Anyone who has
read No. 12 of the Central Organ will see that we did not say anything of
the sort. The agreement with the Mensheviks wason conditionthat
they recognised partyism and sincerely, consistently renounced
liquidationism.Golos Sotsial-Demokrataand a group of its
followers in Russiadisruptedthis agreement: some, like Mikhail,
Roman, Yuri, etc. in Russia? by declaring openly that the agreement itself
was harmful (“the resolutions of the Central Committee are harmful”; the
very existence of the Central Committee is harmful; there is no need to
liquidate the Party, it has been liquidated already), others, likeGolos, by defending the utterances of the former. The pro-Party
Mensheviks, headed by Plekhanov, rebelled against the Golosists for their
violation of the agreement. IfPravdanevertheless wants as before, while speaking of the Mensheviks “in
general”, to have in mind only the Golosists to the exclusion of the
Plekhanovites and the pro-Party Mensheviks, we shall always expose such a
mode of action everywhere.

Pravdadeclares that it “cannot and does not want to enter
into a discussion” of the conflicts after the plenum, firstly, because
“it is not in possession of the factual data required for a correct
judgement”.

Tothis we reply: ifPravdaabroad has not yet found
sufficient “data” in the conduct of the Golosist liquidators itneverwill. In order to see the truth one must not fear to face
the truth.

“...Secondly—andthis is the most important—because organisational
conflicts require organisational and not literary intervention.”

Thisprinciple is correct. But the pro-Party Mensheviks “intervened”,
as any Party member should, in the appraisal of an ideological and not an
organisational conflict.Pravdadoes the opposite. It invokes a
principle but does not follow it in practice. Actually,Pravdadevoted the first paragraph of its article to “interfering” in anorganisationalconflict. And that is not all. In its version of
theorganisationalconflictPravdabrings grist to the
mill of the liquidators by calling our article “harsh in the extreme” butwithout qualifyingthe anti-Party behaviour of the Golosists; it
tells anuntruthby describing asa factionalconflict
the struggle between theParty’s Central Organand theanti-Partysection of the Mensheviks (namely, the Golosists); it
tells a half-truth by passing over in silence the splitting manifesto of
the four editors ofGolos Sotsial-Demokrata, and so forth.

Aworkers’ newspaper should either have kept off the subject of the
“organisational” conflict or have given a full account of it, telling the
whole truth.

Oneof the serious obstacles to Party unity lies in the attempts to
screen the anti-partyism ofGolos. Keeping silent about its
liquidationism or adopting a frivolous attitude to it only aggravates the
danger of liquidationism.

{1}See pp. 156–64 of this volume.—Ed.